Document
The Marwar initiative
The Marwar Initiative: A framework for cooperation for conservation, management and development of India’s heritage.
‘It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.’ The Constitution of India, Article 51 A (f)
A meeting was organized by the Seminar Education Foundation (SEF) in Sardar Samand, Rajasthan from 6-9 February 2004 where the following declaration was approved:
We, the undersigned,* hereby declare that the processes in conservation must incorporate unswerving respect for the following fundamental guidelines:
Preamble: In a rapidly changing global environment, which gives greater recognition to the importance of preserving our shared heritage and culture, it has become abundantly clear that a new approach to conservation must be formulated in the Indian context. The existing structures within which we seek to preserve our heritage and culture have proved to be inadequate for this purpose and must be reevaluated.
In order to discharge our shared responsibility as citizens, a paradigm shift in conservation is urgently required. A new initiative in this regard must incorporate a recasting of policies, legislation, management systems and existing approaches to conservation.
The processes to achieve sustainable conservation of our heritage must respect and acknowledge the history, collective memory and living traditions of our diverse culture. There is an emergent need to forge a close collaboration between multiple stakeholders, which recognizes the advances in conservation tools and techniques and achieves a broader definition of the heritage that we seek to protect.
1. Need for expanded definition of heritage.
2. Need for inventory and documentation of all heritage resources.
3. The conservation process should encompass all heritage.
4. Conservation must be a policy priority.
5. Integration of conservation and sustainable development.
6. Cultural impact assessment for development projects.
7. Incentives for conservation.
8. Shared custodianship.
9. Dialogue with civil society.
10. Public participation in heritage.
11. Right to information.
12. Support to traditional skills and materials and knowledge systems.
13. Accreditation for conservation practitioners.
14. Technical guidelines.
15. Professional code of conduct.
16. Capacity building.
17. Engaging multidisciplinary teams in the conservation process.
18. Heritage management plan mandatory before intervention.
19. Recording intervention at all stages.
20. Appropriate peer/public review.
* The SEF acknowledges, with gratitude, the support of the Ford Foundation towards organizing the meeting.
** Conference participants: Amita Baig, Heritage Management Consultant, World Monument Fund, Delhi; Richard Engelhardt, Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific, Unesco, Bangkok; Kulbhushan Jain, conservation architect, Ahmedabad; Minakshi Jain, conservation architect, Ahmedabad; Abha Narain Lambah, conservation architect, Mumbai; Lawrence Loh, architect, Malaysia; Loh Lin Li, Penang Heritage Trust, Malaysia; A.G. Krishna Menon, architect and conservationist; Director, TVB School of Habitat Studies; Debashish Nayak, Advisor, Heritage Programme, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad; Gurmeet Rai, conservation architect, Director, CRCI, New Delhi; Harsh Sethi, Consulting Editor, ‘Seminar’, Delhi; Akhil Sibal, Advocate; working on conservation/restoration law; Digvijaya Singh, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh; Gaj Singh, Chairman, Mehrangarh Museum Trust; Jitendra Pal Singh, Regional Convenor of INTACH; Trustee, Jaipur Virasat Foundation, Jaipur; Martand Singh, Chairman, INTACH UK Trust, Delhi; Mahendra Singh, CEO, Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur; Malvika Singh, former Vice Chairperson, INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage), Publisher, ‘Seminar’, Mira Singh, INTACH, Jodhpur; Delhi; Tejbir Singh, Editor, ‘Seminar’; Delhi; Gamini Wijesuriya, Former Director Conservation, Sri Lanka; currently working in New Zealand.
The Red Fort, Delhi
Few interventions have exercised the community of conservation architects as the renovations recently initiated at the Red Fort. Even as both the general public and concerned professionals welcomed the efforts of the former minister of culture to free the environs of the fort from the presence of the Indian Army, there was serious concern about the manner in which the ministry and the Archaeological Survey of India went about the task of restoring the fort and its environs. Repeated pleas to involve the larger community in this task were ignored.
As a consequence, a group of concerned citizens filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court asking for a stay on the restoration work and requesting the court to formulate appropriate guidelines for overseeing the work.
Relevant extracts from the petition and the court judgement are reproduced below.
THE Red Fort is amongst the finest Mughal monuments in India – a talismanic emblem of the subcontinent’s struggle against colonial rule.
Of all the Mugal monuments of Delhi which are now invested with so much interest owing to the city having become once more the capital of the Indian Empire, the Fort of Shah Jahan will, to the majority appeal the most.
Sanderson (in ASI annual report 1911-12, 1915, p. 1)
In the larger context, Red Fort played an enormous symbolic role for the Indian people throughout the country, both during and after the freedom movement. On the morning of 15 August 1947, it was from this spot that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, addressed his countrymen to commemorate a day that had long been sought.
A.S. Mukherji, The Red Fort
Compared with its counterpart in Agra, the palace in the Red Fort of Delhi is a unified whole. Its main parts were conceived all at once, rather than built up piecemeal over time, and though it has some later additions these have not destroyed the original basic pattern. However, it is much less well preserved than the Agra palace, for various historical reasons.
After half a century of destruction and neglect, a programme of restoration of the surviving parts was begun by the Archeological Survey in 1903.
G.H.R. Tillotson, Mughal India, London: Viking (1990)
The Issue: As a public-spirited group of citizens, we draw your attention to the reckless renovation work at the Red Fort. We present herewith evidence of a cavalier approach to conservation that perpetuates a chalta hai attitude towards a scientific discipline. The present works at the fort violate international norms of conservation that could disqualify its bid to achieve World Heritage status. Ad hoc measures of ‘beautification’ in the name of restoration attack both protected material heritage and the cultural identity of a society.
Who is to be held responsible for the criminal negligence in the execution of well-established guidelines? Who answers for:
* The elimination of authentic evidence of material heritage, and thereby our identity;
* The replacement of this authentic heritage with new design elements in violation of international conservation charters;
* The presentation of a complex, integrated hydrological structure as a decorative feature;
* The alteration of a traditional architectural ethos with an aesthetics of public-works landscapes;
* The devaluation of high-quality traditional skills by patronising substandard workmanship;
* The denial of our basic right to be informed about the state of our heritage.
Statement of Purpose from the Petitioners: To make conservation really work, we need a contemporary engine to drive the process.
A new sensibility must make use of current scientific tools to accomplish its task, especially from the discipline of architectural conservation. It is indeed unfortunate that the Archaeological Survey of India has no architects working in its staff, leave alone a conservation or landscape architect.
Notions of conservation came into the discipline of archaeology only in the 19th century. The linear thinking of the Victorian age looked at specific and selective landmark buildings as symbols of civilization. The tragedy of the Red Fort, in fact, is that we don’t see it in the context of the living heritage of Shajahanabad and Mughal India. The living skills and the built heritage of the era still provide a vital link to the past, but we see only the tip of the iceberg and position it as a talisman for tourists.
The ASI inherited a colonial concern to protect the monumental heritage of different cultures. This bypassed the many developments in the discipline of conservation as were evolving in Europe where the larger cultural canvas linked it to the emerging concerns for nature, living crafts and people’s relationship to their heritage.
After the World War there was a great concern for the torn fabric of the architectural heritage above the ground, integrating its conservation with the planning process. Finally, these concepts and disciplines became a part of the holistic movement for sustainable development. Such contemporary concepts of architectural conservation came into India only in the 1990s through young architects, several of whom had trained abroad to acquire specialization in conservation. Their scientific rigour and methodology represented a paradigm shift from the approach in which ASI’s sensibilities are rooted.
The ASI, however, has not been entirely successful in restructuring itself around this development. It could more successfully meet its monumental new challenges by involving interdisciplinary professionals, and facilitating citizens to become guardians of their own heritage, linking their everyday lives to the future of our past.
Therefore, we strongly recommend that a cadre of trained professionals in this established but young field be called upon to deliberate on the facts at the Red Fort. Working with the Archaeological Survey, they would be better equipped to expand the ground of expertise beyond traditional boundaries, freeing the ASI from the burden of its monopoly. The collaboration could go a long way in strengthening the movement for interdisciplinary conservation along international guidelines, safeguarding our material heritage for the future.
Below is a suggested list of professionals that can be included to set up a multidisciplinary committee to oversee the work at the Red Fort. Its first task should be the preparation of a viable conservation management plan. This will delineate multiple areas of work which include research (historic layers, evolution of the site which leads to a comprehensive understanding of the significance of the site) history of conservation, documentation, preparation of the conservation plan, a reuse plan, maintenance plan, and so on.
Despite being nominated by the Indian government as ‘cultural heritage’ of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science so as to be included in the World Heritage List, the Red Fort is yet to be selected by the World Heritage Committee for such inclusion. Any material alternation to the historical integrity of the Red Fort will deal a severe blow to any effort to have the Red Fort designated a World Heritage site.
In order to keep alive any chances of inclusion in the World Heritage List, a strict adherence to international standards of conservation must be maintained in any restoration work carried out at the Red Fort.
A multidisciplinary team
To develop a conservation management plan will include:
1. Conservation architects
2. Landscape architect (Mughal Gardens)
3. Urban designer and planner
4. Archaeologist
5. Engineers: specialising in structural, civil, hydrological and other branches
6. Material scientist
7. Supporting scientists (biologist, chemist, physicist, geologist, seismologist)
8. Art/architectural historian in Mughal architecture
9. Art and architectural conservators/skilled craftspeople (frescoes, marble, metal, glass, gesso, pietra dura, gold leaf, polychrome on wood and marble)
10. Quantity surveyor and building contractor
11. GIS mapping experts
12. Graphic, lighting, exhibition designers
13. System designer for soliciting public response and participation
The Judgement: The Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (civil) no.483/2003.
Rajeev Sethi and others (petitioners) vs. Archaeological Survey of India and others (respondents). This petition was called for hearing on 6 August 2004.
Upon hearing counsel the Court made the following order:
At the suggestion of the appearing parties, an Expert Committee is constituted which shall be headed by the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India and of which the following shall be the members:
1. Shri J.P. Joshi, former Director General, Archaeological Survey of India
2. Professor Nalini Thakur, Head, Department of Architectural Conservation, School of Planning and Architecture.
3. Mrs. Anuradha Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor of Architectural Conservation, Department of Architectural Conservation, School of Planning and Architecture.
4. Dr. W.H. Siddiqui, Director (Retd.) Archaeological Survey of India, presently OSD, Rampur Raza Library, Rampur.
5. Dr. O.P. Aggarwal, Director General, Indian Council of Conservation Institute and Architecture Heritage, INTACH, Lucknow.
6. Mohd. Shaheer, Vice President, Indian Society of Landscape Architects, School of Planning and Architecture.
7. Director General, Archaeological Survey of India.
8. Jt. Director General, Archaeological Survey of India.
9. Professor Narayani Gupta.
The Expert Committee will be entitled to formulate its own procedure as to the method in which it will operate. However, it shall:
(a) Ensure that a comprehensive Conservation Management Plan, in accordance with internationally accepted principles, is drawn up. The Committee may also define the parameters and framework within which such a Conservation Management Plan for the Red Fort Site is to be formulated.
(b) Lay down the criteria for selection of the professional teams required at each stage of conservation and the specific skills required for each task.
(c) Make available in a public archive the Conservation Management Plan and the documentation before, during and after any restoration/intervention.
(d) Decide upon whether any steps are required to be taken immediately, pending finalization of the Plan, for safeguarding the monument from any imminent danger of damage or decay, or to undo any of the actions for conservation things that had been done in the past.
No further steps for conservation shall be taken or work done in the name of conservation of the Red Fort without the express written permission of the Committee.
The matter is adjourned sine die with liberty to mention.
